Saturday, August 23, 2008

We are trying to raise money and collect donations for the Limpopo Writing Project in South Africa. The purpose of the Limpopo Writing Project is to have teachers at all levels focus on the teaching of writing in their classrooms and after the Invitational Institute, to have these teachers share their knowledge with other teachers.

We need money so that we can bring 12 teachers to the University of Limpopo for the 1st Invitational Institute during the first two weeks of January, 2009. We need to provide room and board since teachers will be coming from all over this northern part of South Africa. We also would like to provide each teacher with a laptop so therefore we are looking for donations for 12 laptop computers. If you have a used computer that you are no longer using we’d love to have it. If you know of an organization or individuals that would donate laptops, please contact me.

We are also collecting donations for supplies for the institute including paper, pencils, notebooks, and notecards. We also would like to publish an anthology of the teachers’ writing. In addition, we’d like to sponsor at least one promising writing student per teacher. $50 would allow one student to pay school registration fees, receive a school uniform and provide lunch for the entire school year.

This project is in conjunction with the San Antonio Writing Project. We raised money and received grants that allowed two South African teachers to attend our five week 2008 Summer Institute. Their professor also attended the last two weeks of the institute. The San Antonio Writing Project is a part of The National Writing Project.

The Director of the Limpopo Writing Project is Dr. Leketi Makalela and the two Co-Directors are Nakedi Makgoba and Ngokoana Dikgari. I’m the Director of the San Antonio Writing Project, the group that is sponsoring the Limpopo Writing Project and leading the fund-raising. If you’d like to help, please write checks to The Limpopo Writing Project and send it in care of: Dr. Roxanne Henkin, 207 Northcrest Dr, San Antonio, TX 78213. If you have other contributions or questions, please feel free to contact me at roxanne.henkin@utsa.edu. Thanks for helping this dream come true.

I want to welcome you to my blog. In this space, I'll be writing about the literacy education issues that are closest to my heart. I care very much about social justice literacy--using literacy to help students make this a better world. For example, one of the areas I care about very much is bullying. Pollack (1998) found that "the National Association of School Psychologists estimated that in the United States, some 160,000children miss school every day for fear of being bullied" (p. 343, italics mine) (Henkin, 2005, p. 5). By reading, writing, and thinking about bullying, we offer students "the thousands of ethical conversations" they need to grow into strong, literate adults (Henkin, 2005, p. 12). While thinking about these issues, their literacy skills also increase.

As a former classroom teacher (for 18 years) and now as a professor, I've visited many classrooms at all levels and worked with teachers at different levels. We've worked to help students think about ways to deal with bullying by using multicultural literature and literature that deals with social justice issues. In both my books I've included booklists that contain some of these books. Cyberbullying is emerging as a big issue. I'm wondering how teachers and schools are using literacy to confront bullying. Please share any ideas that may be working for you. I'm also interested in students personal stories of how they've dealt with bullying at school. Please join the conversation. Together, we may be able to make a real difference.

Profile

I am a Professor Emeritus at The University of Texas at San Antonio. I have been honored with the Illinois Master Teaching Award, the National-Louis University Outstanding Faculty Award (2001), and the University of Texas at San Antonio, College of Education Awards for Teaching Excellence for Tenured Faculty in 2007-2008, and the 2009 Presidential Award for Community Service. My work has been acknowledged by the 2009 National Council of Teachers of English Halle Award, the 2015 Outstanding Literacy Alumni Award from Northern Illinois University and the 2012 Headline Award for Excellence in Education. I am currently President-Elect for the The Whole Language Umbrella, an International Literacy Organization.
I am also the Director Emeritus of the San Antonio Writing Project. I've also published two books, Who's Invited to Share?: Using Literacy to Teach for Equity and Social Justice and Confronting Bullying: Literacy as a Tool for Character Education, both published by Heinemann. I have also published many scholarly articles.